Registrar: Alice Deutsch
Participants: 19
Weather: sunny, 60’s F
Bird Species: 56
We had a sunny day for our birding trip to Sandy Hook, NJ, led by Rick Wright. We started in Parking Lot M and stayed in that area for several hours. The habitat there is characterized by scattered low trees in sandy soil, including pines, along with some shrubs and grasses. We enjoyed great looks at sparrows and other migrants. Some of the highlights included Savannah Sparrows and a cooperative Dickcissel. Eastern Phoebes seemed to be everywhere.
Rick is the author of the Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America. He taught us how to identify sparrows, especially Savannah Sparrows, and various birds in flight, including a Red-headed Woodpecker. For lunch we moved to an area closer to the ocean, where the shoreline habitats included dunes with grasses and low shrubs. Among the gulls we observed was a Bonaparte’s, and we also saw a Northern Harrier flying above the shrubs. Rick did a great job of getting us on the bird and describing the identifying field marks.
Species Lists
Birds
Canada Goose
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Chimney Swift
Bonaparte’s Gull
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Forster’s Tern
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Cooper’s Hawk
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
American Kestrel
Eastern Phoebe
Red-eyed Vireo
American Crow
Common Raven
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Golden-crowned Kinglet
European Starling
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
House Sparrow
House Finch
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Bobolink
Baltimore Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Parula
Palm Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Dickcissel
